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Thursday, August 28, 2014

It's Not You...It's Us -- with a little more depth (a grammatical interlude)

My friend, Steve Froikin, had a sharp critique of my previous post. I am bringing his comments immediately below and then my reply.

Again, if you're not into finer points of biblical grammar, you may want to skip this, although I hope you don't!

Steve said:

I don’t buy it for two reasons (sorry
for rendering the Hebrew in English characters, but I can’t get it
to work as mixed Hebrew and English text).

Basically you are
saying that ETCHEM is the object of the verb YISHAL[CHA]. I put “CHA”
in brackets to emphasize that YISHAL already has an object: CHA—“he
will ask [you].” It would be very peculiar to have a second object,
ETCHEM, that performs the same function. It is doubly peculiar to
have that second object separated so far from the verb. And it is
triply peculiar that the intervening text contains a verb, TZIVAH,
that now lacks an object because you have attached it to the more
distant YISHAL. ETCHEM makes total sense as the object of TZIVAH and
is triply strained to read it as the object of YISHAL.

Your
comparison of the Deut. 6 text with the Deut. 5 text doesn’t seem
valid to me. In the Deut. 5 text you have a wayward object (ETCHEM).
In the Deut. 5 text you have a wayward verb (or gerund, or whatever
you want to call it: LEIMOR). Unfortunately, you stopped quoting
Deut. 5 at a critical point. What you omitted, was a kind of object
to the verb LEIMOR (namely, quotation of the ten commandments). In
other words, Deut. 5 inserted the parenthetical “for you were
frightened in the face of the fire and you didn't go up on the mount”
prior to LEIMOR because to do otherwise would have separated LEIMOR
from its object (the quote). I actually see Deut. 5 supporting the
proposition that verbs and their objects need to be close
together.

By this reasoning, the wise son is still excluding
himself from the community.

And here is my reply:

You make some strong points and you
added one more to me privately – namely that the object אתכם
(to you – plural) does not agree with the earlier object of
'you' (singular) in the word ישאלך.
This latter point was one I thought to bring up myself but was
frankly too tired by the time I finished the post.

In any event, I will try to defend this
position although I acknowledge it is not the obvious reading of the
verse.

The fact that אתכם
seems to be repetitive according to this reading is not
unprecedented. Thus we see this verse:

Genesis
Chapter 30 (20) And Leah said, God has given me a choice gift to
me. This time my husband will exalt me for I have borne him six
sons. And she called his name Z'vulun.

Standard translations will not bring
the extra 'to me' since it is understood in context as not adding
meaning. Although it may be peculiar, as you point out, it is not
unknown in biblical Hebrew. See, also, Jeremiah 27:8 for another
example.

The fact that אתכם
is plural while ישאלך is
singular seems more troubling. However, plural and singular do not
always agree in biblical Hebrew.

Look at the beginning of our chapter
(Deuteronomy 6), verses 1 and 2 (For the sake of brevity, I am not bringing a
translation here):

These two verses constitute a single
sentence. Note that when Moshe is addressing the people
here he first addresses them in the plural but later in the sentence
addresses them in the singular. (Note, also, in the second half of
verse two it says “...that I commanded you, you and
your son and the son of your son...”, the second 'you' being
repetitive.)

If you continue in the chapter, you
will see the same pattern such as in v.4 and v.5 which is familiar to
us as the beginning of the Sh'ma. Verses 10-12 are in the singular
and then 13 is in the plural. You will see this switch over the next
several verses, as well.

But perhaps the best example is the
verse immediately following the question of the son:

Deuteronomy
Chapter 6 (21) And you (singular) will say to your
(singular) son, We
were slaves in Egypt to Pharaoh and the Lord took us
out of Egypt with a strong arm.

You might say that in this latter verse
the response 'you' give is in the plural because you (singular) are
telling the story of the nation as a whole. Yet, the verse could have just as easily said 'to your (plural) sons.' I understand that the
'we' could be understood collectively and not specifically about the
person telling the answer. All I need to do, though, is to point out
that it can be understood the way I have explained.

I think it is fair to say that the
Torah, particularly in this context, was not trying to make singular
and plural match. You can interpret each case where they don't match
as having particular significance, but you can also say on the p'shat
level that, at least in this context, they are interchangeable. This
singular/plural issue appears many places throughout Tanach.

As far as the word צוה
not having an object according to R. Hoffmann's reading:
Actually, according to his reading, the object precedes the verb. The
verse says:

Deuteronomy
6:20 When
your son asks tomorrow saying: What are the testimonies and the
statutes and the judgments that the Lord our God commanded you?

The
'testimonies, statutes and judgments' are the object of the verb
'commanded.' According to the more popular reading you are defending,
the 'to you' at the end is an indirect object. Biblical grammar does
not demand an indirect object. (I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm
wrong about the direct and indirect object here—but I think I got
it right). The Torah has many examples of things being commanded
without an indirect object stated. For example:

Exodus
Chapter 16(16)This is the thing
that the Lord commanded:
Gather from it each person according to what he eats, an omer
to a person for as many of you as there are; each of you shall fetch
for those in his tent.

The
verse doesn't say 'This is the thing that the Lord commanded to
you.'
Thus, one can argue in our verse that the אתכם
('to
you') at the end does not necessarily refer back to the verb צוה
('command').

As
far as differentiating between the example of אתכם
being
separated by a long clause from the verb at the beginning of the
sentence and לאמר
being
separated by a long clause at the beginning – I think this it is
valid to point this out. I admit that I haven't yet found the word
אתכם
or
a variant separated by such a clause elsewhere in Tanach (although I
am still looking). However, I think, with all the other points I
made, that it is not wrong to see אתכם
as
belonging to ישאלך.

I
believe this is a reasonable defense of the interpretation of R.
Hoffmann. I understand it feels strained, but I think it is valid. If
I find more precise proof texts, I will share them.

Also,
I will point out again that even according to the more simple reading
of the verse, this son does not entirely exclude himself from the
community. He still recognizes that the Lord is 'our God.' One can
say that he doesn't realize that he, too, is commanded. Or, he might
think that due to his age he is not yet commanded.

Thus,
we have this interpretation: “And it will be when your son asks you
(אתכם)
tomorrow saying: What are the testimonies and the statutes and the
judgments that the Lord our God commanded?”

After
all this, though, I will bring in the next post a different point
that does not upset the syntax of the verse.

4 comments:

Shel-- It's funny that you express a tiny bit of uncertainty about the direct/indirect object terminology. Even though I have been an editor for more than 30 years, I've never had to use the terminology. When I was writing my previous comment, I was trying to remember which was which and decided that it wasn't necessary to make my point. We seem to be thinking along the same lines. The same thing happened today regarding your Facebook post about NY bagels. Now, back to the verses...

The reading you are defending is strained. But you defend it because you are the Chochom. I don't think that the Rasha would take the time to parse it all out as you have. That, not the grammatical argument, is the difference between the Wise son and the Wicked Son. I think you've said that before or, at least, hinted that you are coming to this in a future post.

Even though I posted a grammatical critique (which was fun to do), I am more interested in the psychology. If, as you argue, the Chochom is NOT excluding himself, at least he is doing it with convoluted language that is difficult to understand. That fits the Chochom personality.

But a stronger point is that the Chochom gets into the details. He is obviously interested, even if he trips himself up on the language. Even if the Chochom uses the word "you," it's clear that he wants to join in and become part of the group by learning about all the laws. (All the other chochomim, however, have to razz him about using the word "you" like the Rasha.)

The Rasha, on the other hand, is sarcastic. His statement is a put down. "What's it TO ya?" He's definitely not part of the celebration. He isn't seeing himself as a part of the group and isn't really interested in joining in.

I was also thinking that something should be said about the word 'command' -- I think regarding its transitive/intransitive characteristics. In the verse, the (direct?) object of 'command' is what laws are commanded and the (indirect?) object is whom is commanded.

I tend to get a little befuddled by these grammatical terms. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

In any event, I like how you add another layer of interpretation regarding the respective natures of the Wise and Evil son. I may incorporate that in future posts.

I asked my wife about direct and indirect objects. You are right about that. According to her, in a simplified form of the sentence we are talking about--"He will ask you the question"--the word "question" is the direct object and the word "you" is the indirect object. As she said this, I could imagine my 8th grade teacher Ms. Richardson saying this, so my wife--and you--must be right.